


himmelweit

by Molnija



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Guardian Angels, M/M, Unrequited Love, i'm so sorry semi, tendou is mentioned and shirabu has an unnamed friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-05 06:31:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14611656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molnija/pseuds/Molnija
Summary: adj., ger:as far as the sky





	himmelweit

**Author's Note:**

> writing this hurt my heart. obviously, I have to use this opportunity to also hurt your hearts
> 
> all I can do is apologise to Semi ... and to you for the ridiculous amount of exposition. I meant to change it around but it didn't quite work out so live with it, I guess.
> 
> "himmelweit" is one of my favourite German words but it's not usually used as a standalone. I do it anyway because I do what I want.
> 
> this is highkey a soulmate AU except this is what happens when you artificially force someone to be someone's soulmate but not the other way around. it's suffering. it's all suffering. don't do this to people @ whoever is responsible for doing the ... soulmating? that just sounds like an omegaverse thing
> 
> (also this kinda goes nowhere but. shh.)
> 
> //e: holy shit this actually posted??? AO3 died on me so I assumed it didn't make it as is usually the case I only just stumbled upon it randomly ... wow ... this fic really wanted to get published didn't it

Eita’s breath crystallised in the cold winter air, creating little clouds that soon faded into nothing again. The city was sparkling far below him, and from up here on the rooftop of one of the highest buildings with the snow falling from the sky in thick flakes, everything looked a bit like the inside of a snow globe. He couldn’t make out the details of the decorations from up here, but the big Christmas tree still stood out. The star on top was glowing brightly, even in between all those other lights, and it was as if it was calling him down there.

He knew that watching was only going to make it worse, yet he couldn’t look away.

Kenjirou was down there somewhere, enjoying himself or maybe not, with that friend of his he knew had feelings for him. If he had to guess, he’d have said that this came as close to a date as the two of them had had so far and would probably end in some sort of love confession.

His wings twitched at the thought.

If Satori had been here, he’d have told him to just go for it, who cares, there had been instances of angels mingling with humans before and nobody gave a damn but Eita wasn’t just an angel, he was Shirabu Kenjirou’s assigned guardian angel and the number one unwritten rule of his job was that they must not, under any circumstances, show themselves before their protégé, for they would immediately recognise who they were and what their purpose was. As long as nobody knew of their existence, everything was fine, but that would certainly give it away.

Not unlike soulmates, they were bound together and would always just … _Know_.

“Oh, damn it,” he muttered to himself and forked up some snow to make a ball and throw it from the building, hoping it’d hit Kenjirou’s friend slash date. The chances were near non-existent but Eita _was_ an angel still, and those were usually blessed with good luck.

Technically making sure Kenjirou didn’t get hurt was his job, so maybe he could justify to himself going down there after all, finding him, and staying a few steps behind to watch over him. As long as he hid his wings and stayed out of their line of sight, he had nothing to fear. He’d bought these clothes in a normal store, even, because apparently winter on earth was colder than he’d originally anticipated, plus the stuff they had here looked better than all that white and gold they usually got anyway. For all intents and purposes, there was no problem with that.

But … The reason he was staying up here in the first place …

There was no way Eita could bear seeing the two of them together. Not if Kenjirou returned his friend’s feelings – and he was still not sure whether he did.

He’d heard the stories before, when he’d just been assigned to a person. Stories of guardian angels falling in love with the human they were supposed to protect, and none of them had ever ended well. It made sense, he supposed, watching over someone and falling for them after seeing all their endearing and not-so endearing little traits they kept hidden from most, but he’d been foolish enough to believe that, _Hey, he’s kind of a prick so why would I fall in love with him anyway? I’m safe._

Eita had not, in fact, been safe.

Even if he’d had a bit more foresight, though, he could never have guessed that his feelings would be this overwhelming. Being in love hurt quite a bit more when you knew that even if Kenjirou did like him the same way, he’d never know. It was like Eita was trapped behind a one-way mirror, except he knew that breaking the glass would only lead to more trouble.

He looked up at the sky for a moment and a snowflake landed on his nose, tickling him. It didn’t look like the weather was going to clear up anytime soon and the streets had already been affected by the incessant snow and ice, so getting home would prove difficult for Kenjirou. Making sure he had a safe way to get back wasn’t exactly an absolute must according to the rules, but Eita liked doing it anyway, just to be sure. He wouldn’t know how to if he didn’t go down there though. Perhaps Kenjirou was about to go home with his friend …

He shuddered at the thought.

Eita didn’t want to see them, not really. He just wanted to see _him_ , wanted to hear him complain about his classmates and muse about what to get for dinner. Kenjirou lived alone, with his parents being gone for years now because they worked on the other end of the country, which was the whole reason he got assigned a guardian angel in the first place. Most people didn’t need one, those who did were usually children and teenagers, sometimes young adults, who didn’t have anyone to show them their place in the world. Sometimes Eita would sit on his rooftop at night when Kenjirou was out on the balcony talking to himself and it’d be the closest he ever got to him. In those moments, he felt like he could reach out and their hands could touch and everything would turn out okay.

Of course that was never the case.

What was more selfish, staying up here and not taking care of him or going down there and feeding into his own jealousy? Both of them sounded terrible. Normally his approach to these things was to think “what would Satori do” and then do the exact opposite, but who knew what Satori would have done? Satori would have laughed at him, that was what.

At this rate he was going to spend the rest of the night up here on the rooftop wallowing in self-pity and honestly, that was fine by him, but it did mean he was doing a pretty terrible job at being a guardian angel. He didn’t want to stalk Kenjirou or anything so he usually left him alone in situations like these … And yet, he couldn’t help but feel like he should be there. It was a crowded fair, all sorts of bad things happened on those. If Kenjirou got hurt because Eita hadn’t been doing what he had been supposed to, surely he’d get yelled at, too.

With an unwilling groan, he stretched and flapped his wings, shaking the snow from them. He wasn’t looking forward to seeing Kenjirou be all cutesy with his friend but he also didn’t want to get yelled at. Finding him would be easy, in fact he already had his location pin-pointed, the hard part was finding a place to land without anyone seeing him.

Eventually he settled on hiding behind a nearby building and just walking the rest. It was a pretty dirty alleyway but at least nobody was here, and he carefully folded his wings before putting on his jacket. He always hated doing this; being able to shrink them down was convenient but felt like he was tied up, especially with clothes over them. It was why he’d ripped holes into all of his shirts rather than keeping his wings folded underneath them all the time.

Walking, too, was a nuisance. Despite having been on earth for four years now, he’d never get used to it. Eita had only learned to appreciate the freedom of soaring through the air once it had been stripped away from him, and now he was all the more painfully aware that he could be flying instead.

But that was life, and he’d have to live with it.

Sometimes he wished that he didn’t have that connection with Kenjirou, because he would have been fine aimlessly wandering around the place looking for him. Instead, he was almost drawn to him, like someone had him on a leash and was pulling him along – he couldn’t really fight it if they were somewhat close.

The atmosphere at the fair was nice, warm and welcoming amidst the harsh cold of winter, but he couldn’t appreciate it anymore. Not when he spotted Kenjirou among the crowd, a candy cane in one hand and his friend’s hand in the other.

Eita wanted to run, but even if he physically had been able to, he found himself frozen in place.

He knew, of course, that this was for the best. His own stupid feelings for him would never make anything happen and obviously he wanted him to be happy. But seeing him like this, laughing at something his friend had said, with bright eyes and a soft blush on his cheeks, holding on to his hand – it felt as if a knife was twisting in Eita’s heart.

And yet he couldn’t look away.

In a better world, he would have been that friend, seeing Kenjirou’s rare smile directed at him and holding him close, but he wasn’t, he would never be. He’d known it was a mistake to go down here, he should have just stayed back and skipped his duties – heck, he sure wasn’t any more motivated to do some protecting now.

Involuntarily, certain thoughts began bubbling up inside him; if he could lure that friend away, could somehow make him mess up and destroy their budding relationship—

He shook his head almost violently and forced himself to turn around and try and inspect the snow globes sold at the stand he was standing next to.

His job was to keep Kenjirou safe. The whole reason he had been assigned to him had been that Kenjirou had needed somebody to ensure he was living a good life. This was part of it. As much as it hurt, it wasn’t Eita’s place to step in unless their relationship turned abusive, which he knew it wouldn’t, because Kenjirou’s friend was a decent guy from everything he’d gathered and he kind of hated him for it.

Forcing his mind to clear at least a little bit, he realised he was standing way too close to them. As long as his eyes didn’t meet Kenjirou’s they should be fine but this had gone way past the safety standard he tried to keep up. Moving away, though, was always so much more difficult than coming closer. The same leash that had dragged him here was still pulling, and it was bound to Kenjirou because of course it was. He couldn’t have been crueller if he’d tried.

“Should we go get something else to eat?” Kenjirou’s friend asked, muffled in the noise of the crowd.

“Again? You just had something. Coach’s gonna yell at you if you get fat,” Kenjirou replied, crystal clear to Eita’s ears only. His voice was drenched in dry amusement. He always liked that voice. It felt honest but playful.

Eita held up a snow globe and shook it, trying to focus on the snowflakes mirroring the ones falling on this earth, on the picturesque little village behind the glass, anything but Kenjirou.

Of course, it was no use.

He couldn’t hear what his friend said in response but the next words were once again clear as day. “Stop doing this, you’re a bad influence on the kouhai. They’re already enough of a pain to deal with, don’t enable them.”

Ah, yes. The kouhai from the volleyball club. One in particular Eita knew all too well – Wakatoshi’s protégé Goshiki. Not that Wakatoshi ever actually did anything but wholeheartedly believe in Goshiki’s ability to handle things on his own. Kenjirou always complained about him being way too over-the-top and desperate for attention, but Eita knew that occasionally, in the safety of the night when he thought nobody could hear, there was affection in his voice, too. Hearing that for the first time was when he realised he was in love with him.

Right now, he cursed Goshiki to hell and beyond.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry Goshiki he didn't mean it


End file.
